Thursday, March 25, 2004

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the war on
terrorism what the Spanish Civil War was to World War II. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is where airline hijacking, suicide
bombing and assassinations with helicopter-mounted guided missiles
were all perfected and made ready for export.

But it's not only types of violence that were perfected there. It
was also there where Palestinian terrorists regularly attempted to
hijack democratic elections on the eve of the vote. Liberal Labor
Party candidates in Israel, throughout the 1980's and 1990's, always
had to hold their breath that there would not be a big terrorist
attack on the eve of an election. Because if there was, swing voters
would usually move to the right and the Likud candidate would
benefit. The Palestinian terrorists always "voted" Likud, not
Labor. They wanted hard-liners at the helm in Israel because they
would build more settlements and further radicalize and destabilize
the situation.

And he cascades that, in turn, to a second analogy -- between those
Israeli elections, and the recent elections in Spain, which currently
has troops occupying Iraq, and was just subject to a massive terrorist
attack. This is a powerful and lofty argument -- no matter that the
Spaniards, in their own election, voted their own hawks out.

Friedman, you see, is focused on his grand vision of a long-term
occupation, building a perfect, Western, free-trading secular
democracy in Iraq. An early end to the occupation, no matter for what
reason, would imperil that vision. But take heart, Tom. The Spanish
contingent just isn't that big; most of the troops are American, and
it's American policy that will tell the tale of what kind of
occupation we get.

Right now, American policy seems to be to get the hell out by June
30th, and devil take the hindmost.

I'm not nearly as optimistic about Friedman about
what the continuing occupation could bring -- but if a continued occupation
is what he wants, he should write about the real problems with sustaining one. The
fall of Aznar's reign in Spain has nothing to do with that. But this column does show
us what makes Friedman unique: how many other columnists would greet a new
Spanish government by publicly lecturing them on the lessons of the Spanish
civil war?